Page 94 of Stolen Princess

“Yup.”

He kisses the crook of my neck, and my eyes close.

“You know you’re not that evil, right?”

“I’m not good either, and you can’t argue that.”

He’s not. But he’s not a monster the way he thinks he is. It’s as he said to me, most people are shaded in gray, and he’s definitely that.

“We could stay here. Build a hut and be beach people.”

I can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “That’s sort of my goal, you know. Being a beach bum. Just not here.”

My eyes burn with unshed tears. So stupid. I hate feeling like this when I knew how it would go all along. “Can I visit your house when you get one?”

“Absolutely. You’ll have to leave your husband at home.”

“What if I have children?”

He shudders ever so slightly, his thumb dragging along my jaw. “We’ll figure that out then.”

I pull back. “I’m not marrying a prince. I seem to like the villain more.”

His eyes turn soft, his lips tilting down. “You shouldn’t.”

“But I do. I don’t want this to be the end, and I know that’s what you’re trying to set me up for.”

He drags my forehead back to his, our noses brushing. “You should end up with the prince, not the villain. I’m not someone who could be in that world. Baby, you deserve a million times better than anything I am.”

“I think you’re so much better, so much more than you see.”

His lips meet mine, and he kisses me for minutes, but it’s not long enough. It likely never will be. There’s nothing left for me to say. No argument if he’s not willing to fight.

This is it. Our final day together, and I hate it.

After that, it’s more silence, but it’s not tense or awkward. It’s comfortable and easy because that’s how I force myself to be. It’s watching the world move while we don’t. Eventually time catches up with us, and we pack up all our gear and make the trek back up the fucking cliffside, which is even harder to do on the way up than it was on the way down.

We get in the car and music plays, but it’s less than an hour before we’re parking near the festival grounds. People are everywhere, and there’s an energy in the air along with the scent of food. The festival grounds are massive, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s the same grounds where the palace the king was killed and I was stolen from used to be. It’s been razed and turned into a park with a lake and gardens and open area, but still.

This is where I lived as a baby. This is where I was taken from.

I don’t know why any of it happened. I broke my phone, and I can’t even ask my mother or whoever she is. The questions are mounting, but worse than that, I have a clock ticking in my head. I fear he’ll leave me the moment he can. It’s such a contradiction to how he is when we’re alone. Yet I feel him already starting to pull away.

He’s not holding my hand now, and he’s hardly looking at me despite the smile on his face and his easy social engineering way. He also has his phone in his hand a lot, reading and responding, and I don’t know who he’s talking to.

Has all of this been a ploy? Is he using me to get the tiara after all? Am I part of his game? He warned me, and I didn’t heed it, but how could I have? He’s been perfect. I don’t want to doubt him now. It’s been us, and we have been perfect. I trust him. He told me to trust him, and I do.

His head is swiveling every which way, his body tense. Maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s working to keep us both safe.

“We can get food and go hide out somewhere.”

His head whips in my direction, then a smile breaks loose, and he tosses an arm over my shoulder. “If I hide out with you, I’ll end up inside of you. Biggest day of your life, you deserve to enjoy every second.”

“Soooo… having you inside of me is not enjoyable? Just trying to clarify.”

He leans in and kisses me. “We’ll get there. I hope. This stuff first. Then later, we’ll go somewhere safer, but no one is going to risk something in broad daylight. At least I wouldn’t, and I usually have good instincts. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be complacent either and risk your safety.”

Hiccup and cartwheel. That’s my heart.